"I think I'm aging ungracefully --Hick Nielsen"

If Cheap Trick are the ultimate American band for the 80’s, they certainly aren’t saying so. And neither am I, because talk like that can get a fellow in big trouble.

Rick Nielsen knows what I mean. He responds to words like “goals” and “challenges” with the sort of talk one might find in the Protestant Work Ethic handbook (a little-known tome for those who have graduated from the Boy Scout and Explorer handbook; subtitle—Quotes from Chairman Luther).

“We have a goal to make good records—to do whatever we do well,” he says with straight-faced honesty. “I think that’s what it is. If you work on new material, you want that to be as good as possible. If you do old material—make that hot, or change it to make it better.

“You might not do everything great. I keep my finger in like 20 different things, I don’t do any of them great. 1 do a lot of things good. I’m good at a lot of different stuff. I’m not great at anything.”

I offer that some might disagree with this modest assessment.

“Yeah, they might argue that I, do anything good...

“Some people come up,” observes Nielsen, slipping into the all too familiar mid-American (luded) drawl, “ ‘Ahh man...great. What a great songwriter’... yeah, some of the stuff is pretty good. I agree. Some of the stuff...could be better. If I’d written the ultimate song...! don’t think I’ve written the ultimate song, I think it’s coming, but it’ll be a long time before it comes and there’ll be some good ones, and some mediocre ones. Hopefully the number of good ones is up there.”

I almost feel like telling Rick that modesty is most unbecoming in a rock ’n’ roll star, I mean, this is the cover story in CREEM! He’s supposed to say the type of things that’ll keep our letter section buying for months: “Who’s that Rick Nielsen and where does that cocky bastard get off..." think Rick Nielsen’s a god and Cheap Trick are the ultimate. Any punk that doesn’t agree should be subjected to dogbreath from Joe Strummer’s rotting teeth at close range. Van Haien fans who beg to differ should have their noses rubbed in David Lee Roth’s humid blonde armpits after he comes offstage (wait.. .they may like that),

“So we’re busting our butts, worktn’ hard,” explains Rick. “We’ve got new ideas got a good crew, good management—all this junk. Record company’s jumping for it...lungingat us, whatever. We’re getting a lot of press—most good, some bad.

“We’ll just keep plugging and all that stuff. It’s not like we’re trying to be the only thing—the only game in town. There’s a lot of good bands. Some people will tell you that they don’t listen to anything. .,‘I hate all these groups! I’m the only thing on earth!’ Well, we know better than that.

“We don’t try to, Well, we try to please ourselves, and how we make records, It’s neat that we have fans. Otherwise we’re not striving to do the ultimate thing of all time. We make good records and play records and play good.” Now come on, Rick that’s not all there is to Cheap Trick, Ya think we’d put you on the cover for just being good??!! This is CREEM, not Boy s Life!!

Later Rick cautions me; “We’re not as goody two-shoes as you might think.

“Rather than getting into experiences, I’m thinking about the last tour of Japan. The night after we did a place called Kobi City and went back to the hotel and got cleaned up, we brought out about four cases of local beer, and different assorted ...things. We had a bunch of our crew and we’re goin’ back on this big super highway and on this bus. Here the guys are moonin’, puking, defecating—they’re goin’ number one and number two out the windows as we’re goin’ down the highway...we’re screaming, making noise, abusing everyone. When we come ot the toll booth, we give out bottles of beer to the toll collectors. That’s one night—part of one night. We usually just don’t talk about what we’re doing. We just like to leave it up to the music.

"I think they're called ..."pink ladies"...--Rick Nielsen"

“You never read about the Jack Daniels parties, and this and that. But there’s really not as much of that as a lot of other bands have. We don’t feel that’s so important. The important thing is the music and how we’re doin’.

“But obviously we’re no angels...no way,” he adds with a chuckle .

Now that’s little more along the lines of what were looking for, Rick, What we need is material for America's Only Rock 'n' Roll Magatnie puking, stnttirig overdosing kinky sex real rick 'n roll mcperiertd es Who said anything about music?

"Like whet i tin iottie,' says Rick, "I hke to have thing to do there. I'm active in the Iota! Scene there hot just ittusital

"I have strong civic pride for where I live in (Rockford, Illinois) Of course I care about what happetis atom id tl~e world hut obviously you're gonna know a little bettet what's goin' on down the street Fin involved in some projects, and so Robe and Bun E.

"We have a new civic ccii ter that's opening in Rockford, which opens ii January or February and we're gonna he the first rock group there. We're gonna do two shows. make it a big deal.

"We're also working with a symphony orchestra, plus I'm g mina do some... gonna narrate some ShoWs for the junior high sChool and high school kids. I'm sort of going to be the bridge between the rock sound and the syrflphony sort of thing. I'll explain this isn't all horrible, this is really interesting.

"And I'll say it the other way toonot everyone likes rock, and not everyone likes symphonies. But there's interesting things involved in both

"I'm also involved in a way with our school district and our music system in and around town,.. .I’ve also been involved with getting a band started for the blind somewhere.

John (Lennon) probably thought I was Ozzle and Harriet's kid or something until 1 got to the studio. —Rick Nielsen

“I don’t want a mecfa/!” Rick says pointedly. “I just do it because I get a kick out of it.”

Robin later explains his part in these projects—getting old guitars and hand percussion instruments to schools. And he sees another important community contribution on their part too.

“I think we’ve helped revitalize the attitude of musicians in the whole Chicago area. They see how we’re doing and know that it’s not so impossible. Not everyone, mind you. There are some people who think we’re terrible! But I do think we help show people in the area it can be done.”

“I don’t know if it’s even worth speaking about,” Rick finally concludes about their community work. “It’s all pretty much musical stuff because that’s what I know best. If I was good at hospital care, maybe I’d be a...What do they call them at the hospital? I think they’re called.. .‘pink ladies’ or something like that. They go in with these pink shirts on and... ”

“Candy-stripers,” inserts the helpful publicist.

“Yeah—the candy-stripers. Seems like I saw a movie called that. As a matter of fact, I have a video of that. Trying to learn about hospitals. Quite a good experience there. I can’t believe some of the operations they were performing...”

OK, wait a second. I mean, are these guys the Shriners or Rotarians or something? I thought this was rock ’n’ roll??!!

☆ ☆ ☆

Perhaps a little explanation is in order. Since they arrived on the national rock scene in 1975, Cheap Trick have garnered a formidable following on the strength of their witty, zestful songs and animated live performances. Their sound seems drawn from a number of respectable sources—a little Beatles, a touch of Who, and a bit of the old wham bam of the early Led Zeppelin. Rick Nielsen composes songs that exude pop appeal, yet the band plays them with the straight-forward punch that is what the masses still clamor for.

Their history has been covered with considerable depth in this publication and others; suffice to say here that the band emerged from years of hard work on the Midwest club scene as one of those rarely full-blown concepts on the very first album.

Both music and image were well-defined on the Jack Douglas-produced debut— Cheap Trick. On the one hand you have pretty boys Robin Zander and Tom Petersson, while drummer Bun E. Carlos and guitarist Nielsen played the role of genuinely spaced-out oddities. This dichotomy was successfully used on the covers of their next two albums—In Color and Heaven Tonight (both produced by CBS staffer Tom Werman).

Their logo also began to appear imprinted on almost anything sellable— t-shirts, buttons, jackets, panties...even a neat hanging bag for suits that arrived at my door one Christmas. From the very first moment, Cheap Trick were nothing if not a very marketable phenomenon.

Live At Budokan put them on top of the charts after selling handsomely as an import (And set off the Budokan twofer craze). It kept selling so well that.the release of Dream Police was delayed again and again as they waited for the live disc to drop off the charts. When the last studio album finally hit the streets, it too climbed to the upper reaches of the sales charts.

"...moonin', puking, defecating... —Rick Nielsen"

Cheap Trick also put in the sweat to make themselves a prime draw on the American' touring circuit, and to anyone who’s seen the band that should come as no surprise. Their live attack is thick and polished, but not without a buzzsaw energy that can’t fail to impress. Onstage as well as offstage in interviews, the focus is on Nielsen, whose wild hop, skip and jump antics in concert are only equaled by his sardonic wit and whimsy offstage:

As the band’s visual focus, primary songwriter and seemingly de facto leader, Nielsen seems the embodiment of Cheap Trick. In fact, his mere presence seems a bit of a cheap trick—the dozens of handmade and specially designed sweaters (cardigan models just like Jimmy Carter favors; Rick' should send him a Cheap Trick model), the rubbery facial expressions, the pointed and punctpring wit. One senses a certain calculation in this image—a feeling that extends to the whole band. /That doesn’t mean I’m accusing Nielsen of presenting to the public a false face. I’m just aware that they put a certain forethought into justTiow they would present who they are.

Yet the image never seems to go overboard. The first time I interviewed Rick, he was all of the bubbling cauldrorTof comic bedlam one might imagine him to be, full of funny sneers, appealing but snide wisecracks, joyful jibes and precocious puns. Yet at a lunch with him a few months later I got to see another side of the man while he kept me entertained with jokes. Though utterly outrageous in appearance, Nielsen had the polite Japanese waiters at a Benihana restaurant hovering around him like flies. The secret—an acute sense of Japanese manners and deportment, which the attending Orientals ate up like bears lapping at honey.

This time around, Rick was even more serious, his voice traveling up into the nasal, facetious tones that characterize his jokes even less than ever. Although I sort of missed ^that side of Rick, there is really no need for it. We’d talked before and there was no need to impress me.

And although he willingly and seriously discussed all sorts of subjects, that old image-calculation still came into play. There are certain things Rick Nielsen either won’t answer or skillfully avoids.

When I noted what looked like a wedding band on the third finger of his left hand> Nielsen hesitated to answer whether or not that meant he was married. Not that I or anyone else really care if he is, but I observed him keeping that hand covered for a good part of the rest of the interview. Asking him about the staple in the lobe of his right ear, I surmised that Rick was trying to quit $moking, or some other such vice. “That’s to disguise the fact that I’ve got dirt in my ears. They don’t notice the dirt because they tend to look at the lobe.

“I did this about eight or nine years ago before it meant that you had water signs on the fourth Tuesday of every moon unit, or whatever that junk is, or if you’re AC/DC or

whatever all that junk means, or you hang out in the uh...I think it’s the Eulensteigal Society, you know what I mean? I probably have it pronounced wrong. It’s the place where you go in...it’s the beat-up dubs where you go in and they beat you up. You have to pay them to beat you up.

"I don’t want a medal. -Rick Nielsen"

“No, I have enough bad habits I’m trying not to kick. I feel OK, though. I think I’m aging ungracefully, which I think is great.”

So I asked ftick a hypothetical question: if I passed by his house would'I see him out mowing his lawn with a sweater and baseball cap? “Well uh,-1 don’t, own a lawnmower...you might find me walking my flock of sheep out there. I wear the same . stuff at home. Have for years.”

“That’s how Rick really is,” says Robin, “even at home. You go over there and it’s this really crazy place. He has all kinds of electronic gadgets and toys, so it’s almost like a kid’s playroom.”

And if Rick prefers to keep his private life just that, I don’t really mind. I’m just trying to decide what all’s behind the public phenomenon of Cheap Trick.

The explanation of that might better be left to the music. Their new album—All Shook Up—seems the best place to explore that issue. Produced by George Martin, the man behind the board with the Beatles, the album seems Cheap Trick’s most definitive statement to date. Filled with terse, hard-driving songs, it shows the band still nodding to their influences (“Stop This Game” has a Who-like feel with a vocal by Zander as powerful as Daltrey’s best, “Baby Loves To Rock” echoes Led Zeppelin and Robert Plant, and “World’s Greatest Lover” comes off as a perfect Lennon tune which he wrote. “I Love You Honey, But I Hate Your Friends” even encapsulates the feel of two great acts—the Stones and the Faces, with a raspy, roosterish vocal by Zander). But the essence of the collection is pure Cheap Trick.

Nielsen describes the record with a certain pride and excitement, but hesitates to give too much credit to Martin. And in a certain way, rightly so, since the album harkens back to their very first disc in both songs and sound. The Martin touches—a fat British sound and those trademark string flourishes—are apparent, but one senses the union of Cheap Trick with rock’s godfather of producers is a match whose potential is yet to be fully explored.

“I think the basic sounds in this album are a lot rawer than they’ve been recently,” Rick observes. “When a song is a song of the streets, George Martin makes the sound of the streets. When the song needs the embellishment, he’s got that handled.

“He doesn’t make the record, and we don’t just make the, record. It’s all of us—that’s the idea of having a producer, not just some figurehead producer who puts his name on the record. They should actually do something. I think producers get too much credit anyhow—they don’t do that much anyway. But George is actually very helpful and very good for us as a band, and for the record.”

Robin confirmed this view. “He’s a real gentleman,” he said of Martin, “in the studio he’s just great to work with, because he listens to your ideas and what you’re doing and also has ideas of his own, almost all of which are really good. He’s able to create an, atmosphere there that is both comfortable and productive. It was a real privilege to work with him. ”

TURN TO PAGE 62

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 29

Ricjk says that Martin is so much of a gentleman that “In the middle of the night, if he sneezes, he says ‘Excuse me’ to himself.. .actually, I do that too.

“He’s a gentleman and one of the best producers in the business. He’s always going to be known for certain things but it’s interesting...he’s a very timeless producer, rather than ‘Well, he was good then,’ He’s all work and wanted to get right down to business. We did the album in three weeks, basically, down to Montserrat, then another week in England doing things we couldn’t do down there.”

“Recording on a lush isle in the West Indies, we’d work six days a week and take the seventh day off. We’d go out and they’d cook for us these barbeque dinners. We’d go out qn a boat and drown... things like that. Drink a lot of imported beer.”

When Rick and Bun E. were recently asked to work on the John Lennon sessions, did Nielsen take the chance to compare notes with Lennon on Martin?

“He knew we were working with Martin. That was about it.

“We’ve gotten so much press with the John Lennon thing...the idea is that it’s a Lennon album. We were just hired people. It was no big deal.”

Producer Jack Douglas suggested the Tricksters to Lennon, although Rick says that “John probably thought that I was Ozzie and Harriet’s kid or something until I got to the studio. I walked in and he took one look at me and said i know you—I’ve seen you on TV.’

“It was nice that we were asked to play, but they cut so many tracks that the few ones that Bun E. and I were on—well, I’d be surprised if we make it to the album, and I’ll be surprised if it doesn’t make it onto the record. It’s not like the record’s based around us. We’re just hired hands. I talked with Lennon a little bit, but it was mainly about what we were doing—what’s happening here...what about this?...what about that?

“He probably looked in the phone book under ‘Rock Musicians’ and we were the only ones home.

“There weren’t any strict instructions about what to do. It was like—here’s the song, play what you feel. If we like it, nice.

He seemed to like what we did. Just the idea of doing it is enough. Yeah, it’ll be wonderful to end up on a record by a guy who’s such a good songwriter. Yoko was playing too and she’s real good. It was interesting,

“I like to play, and I like to be' around other musicians. Lennon is by far the most famous one I’ve ever played with, but I’ve worked with all kinds of people, and know all kinds of people and stuff likd that.

“But it was something to remember for a longtime. The music was real to-the-street, real to-the-heart rock ’n’ roll. Similar to the stuff you know, but still a bit unpredictable.

“I heard last night... what was the quote?” he asks the helpful publicist. “I won’t quote it because I didn’t hear it'”

“I heard that the stuff was not going to be on the album,” she tells Rick, “because Yoko is pissed off that Cheap Trick were getting too much attention for working with him. But I haven’t checked this out yet. ”

“That’s what she heard, ” Rick concludes, taking it lightly. “But you know, that’s life.

“Taking things seriously—it takes the joy out of talking... ’’Rick observes.

“I had a special guitar made up for Lennon. I’m going to take it over to him tomorrow. I figured he hasn’t played in a long time and a lot of stuff has changed. A Hamer’s a good guitar and Paul (Hamer) called to say he’d make one up for him .

“So I’m going to give it to him. I don’t want brownie points or anything like that.

It’s just like me—if there’s certain things around sometimes you don’t know about them. He’s not going to go out to a store and buy one and try it out, so I’ll just give him one, and if he wants to try it and play it, great. If he doesn’t, he can stick it back in the box, I suppose.”

Hamer is the firm that makes custom axes for Nielsen, one'of whose passions is collecting guitars. Another favorite pastime is jamming with other bands, which he did recently with Australian Angel City when he provided equipment to replace their stolen gear.

“Yeah, they even allowed me onstage... people still clapped. John Brewster liked my guitar so much he kept it. That was months ago, ” says Nielsen, leaning into the recorder. “I’m still waiting for the check, John...”

He also jams with AC/DC when they tour together. “Yeah, my house burned down on that day Bon Scott died. I honestly felt worse; about Bon than I did about my house. The house can be fixed...poor Bon couldn’t.

Nielsen also has an interest in production, and would very much like to take up Sparks on their offer to let him man those dials. But so far he hasn’t had the time.

What may be earthshaking news to some Cheap Trick fans was the departure of Tom Petersson just after the finish of All Shook Up.

“You’d probably be bored with the truth,” Rick tells me of the situation.

Isay, try me.

“I think he needed a change. He was pointing in that direction for a long time. I think he was not as happy with what we were doing as 1 am, and as the band felt he should be.

“Hey look...we’ve been doing well, so you don’t need to have someone pat you on the back arid say ‘you’re good’ every day. It’s good to have differences of musical opinions...it’s great, it really helps you grow.

“But I think he, really wanted to express himself through his own music, so; he’s making his own record. I wish it could have worked out better where he could have done it while working 100% with Cheap Trick plus 100 % with himself, but I think he was drifting away: I wish him luck.”

Robin explains that “Tom’s making an album with his wife, and he seems to be really happy with what he’s doing. We were sorry to see him go, but it’s better that he did than stay around when he didn’t want to. We’re all still friends and have the same manager, so who knows? Maybe we’ll work together again some day.”

“I think it was all of our decision,” says Rick of Tom’s departure. “He’s voiced his ' opinions about what he thought should happen for the past year and a half, and it just wasn’t.. .it’s too complicated to really go into—matters of opinion, matters of judgement...enthusiasm...a lot of things were involved.”

The replacement Pete Comita “is a real hot player, and a real good songwriter. He’s a musician, but he’s been a fan of the band for a long time, he was going to be the replacement in Foghat for one of the guitar players, they went out and hired him, then the guitar player decided not to quit. He came out to Japan with us when Tom was sick and fitted right in.

“He’s real enthusiastic, has good ideas and is gung-ho towards the band. He’s visually and musically real exciting, because he plays keyboards, plays guitar, sings, writes songs. He’s a hot player—real hot player. I’m going to have ta work harder, and I think I already work hard.

“Plus, like I said, he’s been a fan of the band...rather than get'John Wetton or somebody in the band, a hot player and all this stuff. Maybe to him it’s just another gig, another group he’s going to play with. I don’t like that idea. I think we need someone who’s fresh and excited about the band, because we’re still fresh and excited about the band.”

Nielsen promises some surprises for the new tour this fall, including Bun E. on three sets of drums. “I can’t really explain it to you—you’ll have to see it.”

He improves their position with an assessment of the band’s presept state. “We’re doing real well—Robin sings better than ever on this album. His voice is real clean, yet still dirty—I can’t explain it, but it’s true. Listen, and you’ll hear what I’m talking about.

“We’ve got a great crew, we still like to play, and we’re going to do some club gigs this fall. Get out and hump our own amps and play some of the scuzzy little places we used to play. We’re still having a good time at it...”

But all the seriousness aside, what about some other kinds of fun?

“Well, I’m sure you’ve read where Keith Richards was up for nine days straight. Well, two weeks ago, I was up for two straight weeks. It was sort of fun,” he adds with a devilish laugh.

As for seeing things after a few days, “Well, I liked that. Good for songwriting.. .”

Exiting the interview with a claim that he is a “zen rudist”, Nielsen seems to transfer to his crazier self as he explains the concept album he’s writing.

“The Ten Commandments. You really ought to hear the one: ‘Thou shalt not commit adultery’..

I don’t mind granting Rick his privacy, his quirks, and his little jokes. Maybe taking things too seriously does spoil things. So I’ll just put on All Shook Up and listen to it for fun. And you know sorhething...it works if you let it. __